Sweet and Spicy Bacon Cocktail Sausages

If you are looking for an easy appetizer that will disappear in record time, may I suggest these sweet and spicy bacon cocktail sausages! With chili sauce and bacon wrapped around little sausages they are then topped with brown sugar and baked till sticky.

This recipe is easily doubled or trebled. The only limiting parameter is the size of your baking pan because you don’t want to crowd them in too tightly or the bacon won’t get crispy. I was home alone so I just made a dozen. At a time. Ahem. The photos you see here are actually batch number two. The package of cocktail sausages was 300g so it didn’t take me long to get through them all. It is hard to resist these sweet and spicy bacon-wrapped morsels once you've tried them the first time.

Sweet and Spicy Bacon Cocktail Sausages

An easy but delicious appetizer with bacon, cocktail sausages and chili sauce. These are highly addictive. Be warned.

Ingredients
1 dozen or about 90-100g cocktail sausages
2-3 tablespoons extra hot chili sauce (We love ABC brand from Indonesia.)
4 thin slices or rashers streaky bacon
2-3 tablespoons dark brown sugar

For serving: extra chili sauce for dipping, if desired

Method
Preheat your oven to 375°F or 190°C.

Put your bacon slices between two pieces of cling film and gently roll them out with a rolling pin from end to end. You can do a couple of slices at a time. This will stretch them so that they are even thinner so each little sausage can still be rolled in bacon twice around but it will still bake up crispy.

Cut each slice of bacon into thirds.

Smear a little chili sauce on one end of each piece of bacon. Roll them around the cocktail sausages and secure with a toothpick or, if you are feeling fancy, call them cocktail sticks.

Lay them out in a big baking pan and sprinkle on half the brown sugar.

Bake for six or seven minutes and then remove from the oven. Turn the sausages over and sprinkle on the balance of the brown sugar.

Cook for about six to seven minutes more or until the bacon looks crispy enough for your liking.

Remove from the pan and rest them briefly on paper towels to drain the fat away. I tend to use one sheet of paper towel (so the newsprint doesn’t get on the food) with newspaper underneath.

Serve with extra chili sauce for dipping, if desired. It’s a must at our house.

Enjoy!

You try to take photos without snitching one!  Can't be done. 

Christmas Ham Muffins #MuffinMonday

For just a little taste of Christmas any time of the year, make ham, pineapple and brown sugar muffins, topped with pineapple in just a little brown sugar mustard glaze.

One of the early recipes I shared on this blog was for a baked Christmas ham, covered all over with pineapple slices and maraschino cherries and slathered with brown sugar mustard glaze. Just like my grandmother used to make. I was cooking with a friend in Cairo while I was there on a house-hunting trip before our move, so the photos were pretty sad, but I can tell you that the ham was spectacular.

I give you exhibit A.

These muffins are a little sweet and a little savory and the little drizzle of brown sugar mustard glaze on top is divine.

Ingredients
For the muffin batter:
2 cups or 250g flour
1/2 cup or 100g dark brown sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup or 120ml milk
1/2 cup or 120ml pineapple juice
1/2 cup or 120ml canola oil
2 eggs
2 slices canned pineapple in juice (about 1/2 cup when chopped or 110g)
3/4 cup or 100g sliced or chopped ham

For topping:
12 small chunks pineapple
1 tablespoon dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon prepared yellow mustard
6 cocktail cherries

Method
Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and grease your muffin tin or line it with paper liners.

Cut your pineapple into small chunks and put 12 pieces in a small bowl for the topping. Add the tablespoon of brown sugar and the teaspoon of yellow mustard. Mix well.

Cut your cherries in half and set aside.

In a large bowl, mix together the flour, brown sugar, baking powder and salt.  Mash the brown sugar lumps out with a fork, if necessary.

In another bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, pineapple juice and oil.

Pour your wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and fold them together until just mixed.

Fold in the pineapple and ham.

Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups.

Put one piece of the pineapple topping on each, along with a drizzle of the brown sugar mustard glaze. Add one cherry half.

Bake in the preheated oven about 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool on a rack for a few minutes and then remove the muffins to cool completely.

Now aren't those festive?

Enjoy! Early Merry Christmas to you!

Candied Habanero Bacon

Smoky bacon, topped with brown sugar and ground habanero then baked to a lovely crunchy sweet and salty crispiness, could well be a great snack for cocktail hour. I may never know. My advice: Don’t make it too early in the day because there won’t be any left before the sun sets. It’s irresistible. 

If you are a lover of bacon and hot chilies, there is only one downside to this recipe: It only makes eight slices. As I researched candied bacon on the internet, I came across various recipes and techniques but almost all of them called for about eight slices of bacon, either thin or thick cut, so weights varied. I snorted at them to myself and thought, where are you going with only eight slices?

Then I tried to fit more than eight on my wire rack and I realized why. “Oh, curse you, small wire rack!” I cried, making my helper tilt his head sideways with concern. I either needed to suck it up and leave the oven on for a double batch or settle for only eight. Summer temperatures being what they are in Dubai, I gave in. But I vow to do this again, and in greater quantities, once the scorching stops! It’s too good not to.

Ingredients
8 slices of streaky bacon
1/3 cup packed or 65g dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground habanero or to taste

Method
Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C. and line your baking pan – with sides to catch the rendering fat! - with foil. This is just to make cleanup easier. Place your wire rack on top of the baking pan. Just for the record, my pan is 11x16 inches or 28x40cm.

Arrange bacon in single layer on top of rack.

Bake in the preheated oven for about seven minutes.

Meanwhile, mix your brown sugar and ground habanero together in a small bowl.

Isn't the ground habanero a most wonderful deep red?!

Sprinkle the bacon with half the brown sugar/habanero mixture.

Bake 5-7 minutes longer. Turn the bacon over and sprinkle it with the remaining brown sugar and pepper.

Bake 3-4 minutes longer or until the sugar is melted and bubbly.

Remove from oven. Cool completely, about 15 minutes.

Enjoy!

Rump Steak with Wine-Balsamic Coffee Glaze

Tender rump steak cooked to pink perfection and served with a delicious savory sauce with coffee, red wine, brown sugar and balsamic vinegar, so good you will have to stop yourself from eating the sauce with a spoon.

Coffee adds a wonderful smoky note to any marinade or sauce. Never mind just using it in sweet concoctions. Try it in something savory!
If you’ve been reading along here for a while, you know that I am a lover of coffee.  In fact, coffee has been known to bring out the poet in me, as evidenced by this post back in August of 2012, when I shared the following haiku.

Precious elixir

My good reason for rising

Coffee, always.  Yes!

I love to use it in muffins, like this one, and this one, and this one. Sometimes I just make actual coffee, like this post on how to make your own coffee syrup for the perfect iced latte anytime.

Ah, yes, my love of coffee is well documented. I offer as exhibit F, this birthday greeting, written in coffee beans by my elder daughter who was entrusted with my blog password when she created my lovely header and logo.

The point of this preamble is that you won’t be surprised to learn that my hand shot up when my friend, Jenni Field, of Pastry Chef Online, said that the publisher of a book with coffee recipes was looking for bloggers to review the book and try out the recipes. “Me, me, pick me!” I said, with gaiety and wild abandon, virtually speaking. Happy dance was actual. Because: Coffee!

There was a mix up and the hard copy of my book went missing – cue much sadness and despondency – but then, they sent me a pdf of the book and my world was suddenly better again. Because: Coffee!

While I didn’t get to hold the book in my hands, I did manage to make notes and “bookmark” several recipes I wanted to try. Patricia McCausland-Gallo is the author of Passion for Coffee (<affiliate link) and that passion shines through on each and every page. She tells the story of coffee like a romantic fairytale that came true for the world, starting with the discovery of the effects of eating raw coffee beans on animals, which made the humans take notice, to the roasting and enlarging on their essence through modern times.

The creative recipes use coffee in many imaginative ways, sweet, savory and in between, adding depth and richness, sometimes with just a hint of coffee and other times with a walloping bang that you don’t want to miss.

I can tell you that the coffee ice cream is fabulous and one day I’ll share that recipe as well, but for the book review and introduction of the giveaway, I wanted to jump outside the usual sweet comfort zone and try coffee in a savory dish. It was, in a word, exceptional. The defining factor for me, and one that is often discussed at length at the dining table when I try a new recipe is “Should I make it again?” The answer was a big Yes.

Rump Steak with Wine-Balsamic Coffee Glaze

The original recipe called for flank steak, which I couldn’t locate here so I substituted a similar cut, which worked beautifully. I also used espresso powder in place of the granulated coffee since that’s all the instant coffee I keep in the house.

Ingredients
For the steak:
2 lbs or 930g rump steak
1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon freeze-dried or granulated instant coffee (or espresso powder)
1 tablespoon olive oil (I didn’t measure, just drizzled some in.)
1/2 teaspoon salt

For the sauce:
2 teaspoons freeze-dried or granulated instant coffee (or espresso powder)
3/4 cup or 180ml beef stock or broth
1/4 cup or 60ml red wine
1/4 cup or 60ml balsamic vinegar
1/3 cup or about 65g dark brown sugar
Beurre manié

For the beurre manié – to thicken the sauce – instructions here
2 1/2 teaspoons flour
2 1/2 teaspoons butter, softened

Method
Sprinkle the steak with thyme, black pepper and coffee and pop it in a Ziploc bag. Drizzle in the olive oil and give the whole thing a good massage from the outside.

Place in the refrigerator for a couple of hours or overnight to marinate.

About 15-20 minutes before you are ready to cook, remove the steak from the refrigerator and allow to come to room temperature.

Meanwhile, measure the ingredients for your sauce into a large measuring cup and stir well to combine and to dissolve the brown sugar.

Make your beurre manié. (Check out the link in the ingredients list. It's really easy.) Set both aside.

Heat a heavy sauté pan over medium heat. (I used high heat because that’s how my stove works best for searing.) Season the steak with salt and sear for three to four minutes on each side.

Side one.

Side two.

Cover and cook for five more minutes. (I cut this back to two minutes because we like our steak very pink!) Remove from the pan and cover. Rest for 10 minutes before carving.

The microwave cover is very effective for this stage.

While the steak is resting, we can make the sauce. Add the sauce ingredients to the pan and scrape all the lovely browned bits left behind from the steak as you bring the liquid to the boil.

Now add your beurre manié a little at a time, whisking all the while, until it has all been added. Continue to cook the sauce until it thickens.

Add in the juices from the steak plate and whisk again. Try to stop drinking this sauce with a spoon. It’s futile, by the way.

Now slice the steak into thin strips, against the grain of the meat.

Serve with the warm sauce.

Enjoy!

Just to give you a taste of other recipes in this wonderful book, here’s a list of some of my favorite Passion for Coffee book tour posts so far:

• Café Bomba from Jenni at Pastry Chef Online 
• Cappuccino Brownies from Dionne at Try Anything Once 
• Coffee Curried Chicken from Meghan at Travel Wine Dine 
• Espresso & Almond Praline Ice Cream from Maria at Pink Patisserie 
• Mango Prosciutto Salad from Betty Ann at Asian in America 
• Pork Tenderloins with Dijon Mustard Sauce from Heather at girlichef 

*Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links to the book, Passion for Coffee. If you buy after clicking on my link, I make some small change from the sale and you are still charged the normal price. Win-win! I received a soft copy of this book for review purposes, with no other personal compensation. All opinions are entirely my own.

No-churn Brown Sugar Peach Ripple Ice Cream

Now that I’ve discovered an easy no-churn way of making creamy ice cream, my head is constantly buzzing with ideas for flavors. Peaches are all over the markets right now, so a seasonal double peach ice cream was top of the list.

Years ago when we lived in Brazil, I asked my sister to bring me an ice cream maker when she came to visit. Ice cream was crazy expensive there and we missed it terribly because I just couldn’t bring myself to pay the price. Unfortunately, I didn’t think things through because, once I had the maker in my possession, I discovered that cream was the real culprit and it was going to cost me more to make my own than the expensive store-bought stuff cost. Deep sigh. When we moved to Houston, the ice cream maker came with us but it never got out of the box. Because: Blue Bell. If you live in Texas, you get to eat Blue Bell! Some of the very best ice cream in the country. But now that I’ve caught the ice cream making bug, thanks to my friend, Jenni, I started digging through our storage area over the washing machine and located said never-yet-used ice cream machine and hope to use it for the first time. Coconut ice cream, at the request of my younger daughter, is first on the list. Do you have an ice cream maker? What’s your favorite flavor?

Ingredients
3 medium peaches (about 1 lb or 450g total weight)

1/4 cup, firmly packed, or 50g brown sugar
1/4 cup or 60ml honey
Good pinch salt
1 teaspoon butter
1 2/3 cups or 400ml whipping cream
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
2/3 cup or 200g sweetened condensed milk
1 tablespoon vanilla
2 tablespoons aged rum (I used Ron Zacapa which is almost sweet, it is so mellow.)

Method
Cut the peaches in half and remove the pit. Cut them into pieces.

Put one chopped peach in a small pot with the sugar, honey and salt and heat to a slow boil over a medium flame. Stir frequently.

Cook at a slow boil until the peaches are very soft and the sauce thickens.

If you are a candy thermometer person, and I highly recommend you become one if you aren’t already, heat till about 225°F or °C.  Add the butter and stir while it melts. Set aside to cool. I poured mine into another bowl so it would cool faster then added the butter because I was in a rush to get this ice cream in the freezer.

In your stand mixer or with electric beaters, whisk the cream and cream of tartar until the cream thickens.

Add the condensed milk and whisk until stiff peaks form.

You can see that the cream is already pretty thick.

Add the vanilla and rum and whisk again.

Very stiff now!

Reserve some chopped peaches and peach sauce to add on top of the ice cream.  Ever so gently, fold in the rest of the fresh peaches and peach sauce. I spooned the sauce in all over the surface so it would be easier to fold in and not be completely lost in the folding.

Put the mixture in an airtight container, top with the reserved peaches and sauce and freeze for several hours for soft serve or overnight for firmer ice cream. I had guests coming for dinner so mine was on the softer side, as you can see from the photos.

Enjoy!

Chief instigator ice cream maker, +Jenni Field is also making ice cream today! Have a look at her wonderful Speculoos Cookie Milk Ice Cream! 

Cinnamon Pecan Swirl Bundt with Cinnamon Glaze

Have you ever started a new project or job thinking you would enjoy it but then you are utterly surprised by the amount of joy it brings?  Motherhood was like that for me.  Who knew how gorgeous new babies would smell fresh out of a bath or nuzzling into your shoulder still sleepy from a nap?  You could have told me, but I would never have believed, that I could enjoy changing diapers because I could wonder anew at the perfect little body that we made.  How?!  Or the pervasive elation that comes from seeing a child succeed beyond her own wildest dreams, through hard work and perseverance.  When finally she rolls over.  Or draws her first letters, tongue out, concentration immense.  (Don’t even get me started on when she strides across the stage at her university commencement ceremony!)  Is there any sweeter smile than that of a child shyly proffering the gift she made by hand?  How can you not open your arms and embrace the giver and the gift?  Witnessing my girls grow and blossom into the creative, caring, loving, diligent people they are meant to be makes me deeply joyful, down to my soul.

Almost two years ago, I started this blog without any idea of the joy it would bring either.  I knew I would like the cooking and the writing.  The photography and social media were more of a stretch but I have come to love the challenge of those as well.  The blogging community, including my readers (Yes, you lovely people!) became that sweetly smiling child for me, offering a friendly hand, a supportive word, a pithy comment.   When this post goes live this morning, I will be at my very first blog conference, meeting with members of the community and, I hope, learning how to be better at this blogging thing.  This thing that gives me joy. Thank you for coming along for the ride.

This month’s BundtaMonth theme is swirly cakes!  My cinnamon-pecan-brown sugar filling didn’t so much swirl as solidify into pecan candy, but I can tell you that the Bundt itself was buttery and delicious and the "candy" center was deliciously crunchy.  Scroll on down to the end to see what everyone else made.  Many of them actually swirl.

Ingredients
For the cake:
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons  baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup butter, room temperature
1 1/2 cups white sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk

For the swirl:
3/4 cup pecans
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
 1/2 cup brown sugar
Pinch salt

For the glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2-4 teaspoons milk
Pinch salt

Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and prepare your Bundt pan by greasing it liberally with oil, butter or cooking spray.  Now shake a little flour around in the grease until the whole inside is well coated.  Set aside.

Toast your pecans lightly in a dry skillet on the stove.  Keep tossing or stirring the pecans so they don’t scorch.  This takes just a few minutes.  When the pecans have cooled, chop them with a knife.

In a small bowl, mix together the ingredients for the swirl, including the chopped pecans.  Set aside.

In a bowl, mix together your flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.

In the bowl of your upright mixer or a big mixing bowl, if you are using a handheld mixer, combine the butter and sugar.  Beat until light yellow and fluffy.

Add in the vanilla extract.  Now add in the eggs, beating well between each addition.

Egg one

Egg two

Egg three

Now add in a third of the buttermilk, followed by a third of the flour mixture, beating between each addition.  Continue alternating buttermilk and flour until it is all mixed together and your batter is complete.

Spoon about half your batter into the prepared Bundt pan and smooth it out.

Sprinkle on the swirl mixture.

Top with the remaining batter, smoothing it out when you are done.

Bake for about 30-40 minutes or until the cake is lightly browned and a toothpick comes out clean.

Cool for about 15-20 minutes.  The cake should begin to pull away from the sides of the pan.

Turn the cake out onto a plate and leave to cool completely.   If any pieces stick to the bottom of the pan – sadly, this happens sometimes – just loosen them with a spatula and stick them back on the cake.   Glaze covers a multitude of sins.

In a small bowl, (The one the swirl ingredients were in will do nicely and you don’t even have to wash it first.) combine the powdered sugar, vanilla, pinch of salt and two teaspoons of milk.  Mix thoroughly with a small spoon.

Keep adding milk one teaspoon at a time until the glaze is barely pourable.   Drizzle it over the top of the completely cooled Bundt.

Enjoy!

Have you ever taken on a project or started something new that you enjoyed more than you ever thought you would?

Here is how you can be a part of Bundt-a-Month:
▪ Simple rule: Bake us a swirly bundt
▪ Post it before June 30, 2013
▪ Use the #BundtaMonth hashtag in your title. (For ex: title could read  #BundtaMonth: Cherry Bundt)
▪ Add your entry to the Linky tool below
▪ Link back to our announcement posts

• Apple Swirl Bundt Cake by Renee at Magnolia Days
• Cinnamon Praline Pecan Swirl Bundt Cake by Karen at In the Kitchen With KP
• Cinnamon Pecan Swirl with Cinnamon Glaze by Stacy at Food Lust People Love
• Chocolate and Peanut Butter Swirl Bundt by Anita at Hungry Couple
• Chocolate Matcha Swirl by Kim from Ninja Baking
• Double Chocolate Swirl Bundt Cake by Lora at Cake Duchess
• Lemon Raspberry Swirl Bundt Cake by Carrie at Poet In The Pantry
• Lemon Basil Blueberry Swirl Bundt Cake by Kate at Food Babbles
• Nutella Swirl Bundt by Veronica at My Catholic Kitchen
• Nutella Swirl Bundt Cake by Anuradha at Baker Street
• Orange Creamsicle Bundt by Holly at A Baker’s House
• Strawberry Nutella Swirl Mini Bundts by Alice at Hip Foodie Mom
• Strawberry Swirl Cream Cheese Bundt by Sandra at The Sweet Sensations
• The Spiced Life Espresso Swirled Bundt Cake by Laura at The Spiced Life
• Vanilla Cherry Swirl Mini Bundt Cakes by Heather at Hezzi D’s Books and Cooks
• Zebra Bundt by Tara at Noshing With The Noland

Even more bundt fun! Follow Bundt-a-Month on Facebook where we feature all our gorgeous bundt cakes. Or head over to our Pinterest board for inspiration and choose from hundreds of Bundt cake recipes.